Syndicate

Calculators became affordable in the mid- to late-1970s. Students in the 1980s were taught by teachers who had learned mathematics without calculators, and could do basic mental arithmetic. Students today might be taught by a teacher who is himself unable to work out 37+16 without help. The consequences are neatly described in an “Alex” cartoon I have on my fridge about a proposal to ban the use of calculators in school. “Faced with home work which requires him to work out simple sums in his head today’s lazy seven-year-old will instinctively turn to the quick and easy method of arriving at the answer… i.e. asking his dad, who, embarrassingly also wouldn’t have a clue without a calculator.”

Implications of this could be interesting for software development. When there is a large part of the workforce unable to do simple calculations without the use of a “Guessing Box” I expect there will be a lot more errors in software. Or at least errors that can be attributed to the Garbage In, Garbage Out problem of the users (and developers) not having the basic skills to detect implausible answers from systems.